Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-02-14
promised peculiar delights

big bell" he confded to the little boy
next door "he's promised to take
me way up, too, where l can see the
whanger'
1t was the last week in July. The
parsonage roof was going on rapidly
and the Browns were almost ready to
move, when a letter came from an
old friend, asking him to supply his
pulpit for month. bridget and
our house are at your disposal, "
wrote DR.. Wheat. ''Zoar is just now
delightful. The change will do you
good, and may lead to something !;
so l hope you will come, and bring
with you Mrs. Brown and little Peter
Paul. Reply at once"
The Browns needed no urging.
81 will take only two sermons,
Mr.. Brown said, thoughtfully. 1.-The
doctor has a choice selection of
books. l shall have leisure, and l
think | will write a course on the par
ables while l am there"
''And l shall have a chance for an
afternoon nap-perhaps," sighed his
wife.
DR.. Wheat's house was a hand
some structure of dark-red brick. and
commanded from its upper windows
a distant glimpse of the sea. 1t stood,
as did their new home at South Tur-
keyville, between an alley and the
high wall at the end of the meeting
house. The entrance hall was wains-
coted with fine woods. The fire.
places were set with tiles. The gas
fixtures were in the latest taste. Ev-
cry room in the house, especially the
study, was finished in a refined and
substantial fashion, and the Rev.
Bartholomew Brown settled himself
to pick out the Sunday morning
hymns with the half-envious refec-
ton that here was a church that had
some idea of the needs of pastor.
But across his meditations came the
heavy clangor of the bell, high up in
the lofty spire, and a few moments
later a distracting buzzing, growing
and roaring began, which perYaded
the house with its tremor. "What's
that? p cried Mr.. Brown, bouncing
up.
Bartholomew" replied his wife,
that's the big organ"
The true history of the sufferings
of the Browns during the month that
followed could only be written by
themselves. So far from writing
1onnrsn" OF even one sermon. Mr.
Brown telegraphed Josh Ruby to send
him by express the first ''barrel full''
he came to. DR.. Wheat's meeting
house held the town clock, which told
them the night-watches in tones that
drove sleep from their eyelids and
made sleep by day equally impossible.
Every morning Timothy Tittlebug,
the dry and withered old sexton, air
ed the basement of the sanctuary and
whiled away the tedium by practicing
the first four bars of Greenville, or
the first part of Coronation, on the
reed organ, which, after its kind, was
both wheezy and squeaking. After
nine o'clock there was a continuous
procession of musical geniuses, be-
longing to or affiliated with the
chuch, who practiced on the great
organ. There was absolutely no es-
cape from the sound of it in the
house, and even little Peter Paul's
ears became so exhausted he said,
luerulously:
II wish God would let me be dog
a spell, so could howl, awful"
''Pd niver took the place, but there
was no childer, an me hearin' were
spilled intoirly by workin' to a board
IN house by biler factory, an then
at a deypot ating-house, where an en-
iine bust" said Bridget, sympathet
cally when through little Peter Paul,
she learned the tortures of the
Browns. 'FThe doctor is def in one
ear, an he fills the other wild a chunk
, taller in bit O rag when he is
vantin' to think. Missis is allays
goin' to some place, an its loikely
she hears so much claver she don't |
noind any noise no more"
"What are we going to do when
We are in our house?'' said Mrs.
Brown, despairingly, as the day of
departure drew near. ''At least six
girls practice on our organ"
''Mercy ~ cried Mr.. Brown, start
ng up, while a heavy rumble of pedal
PASS shook the windows, ''Ill never
i've in that house. Never ~
so, Bartholomew :" cried his wife,
putting her hands to her temples.
81 declare" he said, pacing the
ioor rapidly, 'I've sometimes felt
Turing the past weeks as if-Pd new
r been converted" and his voice al
most broke into a sob. 81 know /
laven't the grace-or the constitution
to live beside big organ"
Providence remembers our frame,
nd we are rarely tried beyond our
Before the day was over
'Ir. Brown received a pressing invit-
tion to become the pastor of church
ust starting into life on the confines
# the city. Without much ado the
invitation was accepted, and South
grieved and vexed, held
farauron ssa.foI IN